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Chapter 66: A Buddha Is a Nobody

Not that you will have must to report: there is nothing to be reported. It is thought that buddhas and krishnas or those who have attained the ultimate, cannot describe it because it is so simple. Complex things can be described, remember. Simple things cannot be described. The more complex a thing is, the easier the description is, because in a complexity you can divide, contrast, compare. With a simple thing you cannot do anything.

For example, if I ask you, “What is yellow?” what will you say? Yellow is so simple, there is nothing complex about it. If I ask, “What is water?” you can say, “H20.” It is complex: there is hydrogen, there is oxygen, so you can define it. But if I ask you, “What is yellow?” at the most you can say that yellow is yellow. But that is a tautology, it makes no sense. What will you do if I say, “What is yellow?” You may indicate a yellow flower, you may indicate a yellow sun rising, but you are not saying anything, you are indicating.

A simple thing can only be indicated; a complex thing can be defined, divided, analyzed. Buddhas are silent, not because they have encountered a very complex reality, they are silent because of a phenomenon so simple that it can only be indicated, not defined. So they can lead you towards it but they cannot say anything about it.

That mystery is not a complex thing, it is very simple, the simplest possible. But you can only meet with it when you have also become simple. If you are complex, you cannot meet it. There is no meeting ground. Only when you have become simple, totally simple, innocent, empty, the reality and you meet. Then there is a reflection of it in you. It echoes in you. It enters into you.

But don’t wait for anything special. Nirvana is nothing special. When I say this, what is happening to your mind? When I say this nirvana is nothing special, what do you feel? How do you feel? You feel a little disappointed. In the mind the question must be arising - then why struggle? Then why make any effort? Then why meditate? Then why these techniques?

Look at that mind, that mind is the problem. The mind wants something special. And because of that desire the mind goes on creating special things. In reality there is nothing special: either the whole of reality is special or nothing is special.

Because of this desire, the mind has created heavens, paradises. And it is not satisfied with one, it goes on creating many. Christians have one heaven, Hindus have seven - because there are so many good people, there must be a hierarchy. The supreme good, where should they go? There is no end to it. In Buddha’s days there was a sect who believed in seven hundred heavens. You have to place the egos: the highest ego must go to the highest heaven.

I was looking at a book of the Radhaswamis. They say there are many divisions - fourteen divisions. Only their guru has reached to the last. Buddha is somewhere in the seventh, Krishna somewhere in the fifth, Mohammed somewhere in the third. Only their guru has reached to the fourteenth. And everyone else is given a place, categorized. Only their guru is special. This is the desire to be special. And everyone is according to his desire.